


It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

by Moonheart13



Series: Alternate Universes [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Gen, M/M, but nothing explicit, mentions of basically genocide, more just implications, there's no actual on-screen violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonheart13/pseuds/Moonheart13
Summary: In which the world is being ripped apart by aliens and Christophe is one of the few lucky humans.





	It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Christophe had always known Earth would eventually be attacked. So many of the people on this planet were so soft and weak. Believing in kindness over pragmatism. Political correctness over brutal honesty.

Such fools.

He’d seen the attacks on the news when they first began. It started in Africa. The large spaces of land were perfect for the aliens to build their structures. Their experimentations on the animals took place there as well. In only a week, they’d extended into Europe.

A month later, his birthplace of France had been reduced to fallen buildings and littered with the dead. To add insult to injury, the Eiffel Tower had been contorted into the aliens’ symbol. It resembled something like a gaping mouth of teeth. Hell if Christophe knew what it meant. And he had no desire to figure it out or find a reason to care.

Soon, they came to North America. Many cities were easily destroyed, especially the smaller ones. Thousands of people were murdered in only one day. The news outlets eventually went out completely, only a few radio stations trying to warn people of attacks if they could.

Despite Christophe’s soldier-like training and upbringing, he’d been sure they would kill him, too. After all, they had lasers. A shovel is no good against a laser. Especially one that can instantly make all your organs stop functioning in ten seconds.

He had promised not to go down without a fight and, as the aliens had arrived in Colorado, he had begun to prepare his base at home. His mother had consumed so much alcohol after discovering the aliens’ destruction and massacres, she’d eventually poisoned herself only a week ago. Besides a five-minute long cry, Christophe had not really mourned her. He’d buried her in the backyard, placing a simple stone on the makeshift grave. At least she didn’t have to suffer the aliens’ wrath directly and he only had himself to worry about now.

And then, Gregory arrived at his door.

Ever since the attacks had begun, his long-time friend had been strangely quiet around him. Almost avoiding him. Considering Gregory was usually the one finding a reason to bother or talk to Christophe, this was unusual. He hadn’t given it that much thought at the time since it was hard to think of anything other than aliens attacking and murdering anyone they wanted.

Still, he had arrived, just a few hours before the aliens were due to arrive and wreak their havoc. He stood there, short blond hair frazzled, blue eyes wide.

“Christophe…” he breathed out in harsh pants, blue orbs staring into Christophe’s green ones, “…I have a place…for you to go…we need to…leave…”

Christophe frowned, looking confused. “Go where? In case you haven’t noticed, mon ami, there is no place to go.”

Gregory’s hand suddenly locked onto Christophe’s wrist. “Yes, there _is_.”

Christophe frowned further. “Okay…where?”

“My house.”

“Gregory, your house is going to be able to withstand those attacks just as much as mine will. And that means it won’t.”

Gregory shook his head furiously. “No. You don’t understand, just—please, come with me. Please.” The raw desperation in his voice was enough to make Christophe falter. He’d never heard Gregory talk like that. Not in all the years they’d known one another. They had been friends since they were only children, normally staying away from the main crowd and doing what they loved. Theorizing, planning, assessing. They had discussed all manner of things together from politics to morality.

And now, his friend was truly terrified. Not that Christophe could blame him. Still, he seemed to be more scared for Christophe. That made sense considering Gregory, while at times an arrogant man, was still a generous soul and very often had put Christophe’s needs before his own.

“Well…at least we’ll get to die together,” he muttered, moving upstairs and packing a bag of his essentials.

A couple minutes later, he had followed Gregory to his house. His whole family was there; his stern, disapproving mother, his kindhearted, gentlemanly father who Gregory bared a very close resemblance to, his older sister that Christophe had honestly forgotten existed due to her numerous absences, and his younger, more rebellious sister.

“You know what you are doing bringing him here,” his mother said the moment they’d stepped foot inside.

Gregory’s mother had never liked him. He was fully aware of that. However, there was something different in her tone. Almost ominous.

“I know, mother,” Gregory replied, sharing the tone. “But I cannot lose him. And he can help us protect ourselves.”

“Or just be another mouth to feed,” she replied bitterly.

“Listen,” Christophe stated with a sigh, “I get it. You hate me. The French-British thing really doesn’t have a place anymore since both countries are dust bunnies and our world right here is about to end, so can we all just quit being pissy, eh?” He didn’t want to use up the rest of his remaining energy fighting with this woman.

“You have no idea what she means,” Gregory’s older sister (Annabelle was her name, right?) muttered.

Gregory placed a firm hand on his shoulder as his father let out a sigh.

“We’ll discuss this later,” the older man said. “Come on. We need to get upstairs. They’re almost here and we don’t want them to catch us.”

The whole family seemed to quietly agree (Gregory’s mother giving Christophe one more judgmental look with her eyes) before they all ascended upstairs. However, it wasn’t just to the second floor.

At the end of the hall, in front of their bathroom, a door in the ceiling waited for them, a small string hanging from its center. Christophe had seen it many times before, presuming it to be their attic. Probably holding a bunch of useless heirlooms and photo albums.

Then, Gregory’s father pulled the small string down and the door opened.

Christophe’s jaw dropped.

Inside, even from the bottom looking up, he could shiny counters, wide television screens, countless buttons and switches—it looked just like a—

“No…” he breathed out. He looked back at the family, but they were already making their way inside.

Gregory was the last to follow, stepping onto the wooden ladder that attached to the door. He held out his hand to Christophe. The Frenchman eyed it suspiciously before returning his gaze to Gregory’s eyes.

“You’re safe with us, Chrissy. I promise.”

The stupid nickname that he’d hated for years was enough for Christophe to let out a resigned sigh, taking his hand as they headed up and inside the literal spaceship.

Sure enough, it looked like something out of _Star Trek._ He knew that Stoley kid probably would have creamed his pants if he’d gotten a look at this.

“But—how do you even—?” Christophe’s question was cut off as the door slammed shut and the whole ship let out a loud thrumming sound. He gulped but forced himself to stay calm. He looked at the family, Gregory’s older sister at one of the counters, her fingers typing quickly. “Why do you have this? This looks better than NASA.”

Gregory’s face grew worried again. He and his father exchanged a glance, the older man giving his son an encouraging nod.

“Chris…” Gregory breathed out, “…I’ve been truthful to you about almost everything about me. I do love musical showtunes. I do love fighting with a rapier. And my favorite dish is still homemade beef stew.”

“Greg, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“…we’re not human.”

The statement hung in the air a few silent moments, only broken by a sudden hissing noise and something that Christophe could only assume meant this ship—an actual spaceship—was getting ready to take off.

“Okay,” Christophe said carefully, his grip on his shovel tightening. If the world was going to end, it wasn’t like Christophe had any other place to go, so he might as well hear the rest of this.

Gregory sighed, eyes shutting.

And then, his body changed.

His skin shifted to a glowing orange color, almost like a fish’s shiny scales. His fingers went from ten to six, pointed ends appearing in place of his nails. His ears stretched out, each resembling a pretty paper fan, only made of flesh. His eyes opened back up, still the same blue, but he had no pupil and no white in his eyes. Only blue. His mouth stretched open, revealing rows and rows of sharp teeth. His nose sunk into his skin, his nostrils closing until they were only slits. Strangely, the only thing that hadn’t changed was his hair. It was still just as blond as ever, only it seemed to have a glow to it now as well. Like a god.

The shovel dropped from Christophe’s shaking hands. He let out a frightened, horrified exhale.

Behind Gregory, his family all changed as well. They each stood there, all sporting their own skin colors and their hair remaining the same except for the eerie glowing.

“We came here to seek shelter from our people,” Gregory said, his face looking pained. “Many of our kind wanted to flee their awful, genocidal ways. And for a long while, we blended in here. This planet was beautiful and flawed and it was all we could have ever wanted. You all could barely comprehend what was outside the galaxy, so we never had a fear of you moving too far or becoming like them.”

“But our people came here, anyways. To continue their destruction. They want ours to be the only beauty in the universe. It seemed they thought you humans were a competition although I fail to see how,” Gregory’s mother scoffed.

“I know this is a big shock, son,” Gregory’s father said, looking sympathetic at Christophe’s reaction.

“I wanted to tell you—” Gregory started, but the ship gave a violent lurch as his older sister started the ship up.

“We need to go now. They’re arriving early!” she cried out, taking ahold of the controls. The ship rose up, Christophe’s heart hammering in his chest.

He found himself collapsing to his knees, the end of his shovel clanking loudly against the metal floor. “All this time…” he choked out, “…you were one of them…”

“…yeah,” Gregory said, his voice weak. Normally, his voice was filled with power and adrenaline. Now, it seemed defeated. Pathetic, even. “I’m sorry, Chrissy…when the attacks began, we knew we had to leave and…”

Christophe felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into his best friend’s now very unfamiliar face. “I knew we couldn’t leave you behind,” Gregory whispered. “We can’t do anything for the rest of your kind, but we can save you. I can’t let them get you…I won’t.”

Christophe recalled the day they met. Sitting outside the principal’s office. They were both transfer students. They had sat on the bench, both awkwardly not looking at each other. Five minutes turned to ten and ten became twenty. Finally, Gregory had asked him what his thoughts were on censorship.

From then on, they were rarely seen without the other. Christophe slept over Gregory’s house more times than he did his own. They ate Doritos and watched television and sent memes to each other through text. They told each other secrets, expressing their fears and dreams.

Had it been anyone else, Christophe would have demanded to be kicked off the ship. Declare he should die among his people and not let his fate be decided by this strange group of renegades.

But this was Gregory. His best friend he’d ever had in his life. One of the only people he’d ever allowed to grow close to him.

The choice was oddly simple after considering all those factors.

As the ship took to the sky, breaching the atmosphere, Christophe couldn’t seem to care about looking outside the window. He only stared back at Gregory, gulping again in his throat. “…well,” he said, at last, “…I guess you’ve got a lot to catch me up on, huh?”

Gregory blinked in surprise. “Wh-what?”

“You’re an alien. We don’t know shit about you guys. So…I guess there’s a lot to talk about?”

Gregory stared at him in confusion before offering a hesitant smile, holding out his three-fingered hand to Christophe. Besides the terrifying shark-like teeth, the smile was still so much like Gregory’s. It made a pinch of tenseness in Christophe’s shoulders seep out.

“Yeah, mate. Lots,” Gregory replied.

“Yeah…” Christophe took his offered hand and pulled himself up.

His eyes finally glanced out the window, seeing space itself. The blackness, the stars.

“We’re never going back…right?” he asked, clicking his jaw to the side.

“Probably not,” Gregory said. “Unless your kind go underground or find a way to fight back. I hope they do. I’ve grown fond of your kind. As well as...” He glanced to the side with a slight smile. “I spent a whole hour convincing my mother to let you come with us.”

Christophe found himself wondering if these aliens could blush naturally. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, you know,” Gregory said, meeting his eyes again. “About ignoring you these last few weeks. We knew we had to get out of here and there was so much preparing that needed to be done.”

“I understand. Sort of.” Christophe shrugged.

He found himself glancing around the ship, noticing a door opposite the television sets and control panels.

“So, wait…how big is this thing?”

“Roughly? Bigger than our base—erm. Our house. I can show you around if you’d like.”

“Okay,” he said, looking out the window again as the ship sailed through space.

Down below, their town was being demolished. As the next town would be. And the next. And the next. Soon, everything would be gone. There was a chance the humans could survive. He liked to think that the strong ones, however few they were, were resilient creatures.

Christophe was lucky, he supposed. He was being given an opportunity to live and carry on what he knew of humankind to somewhere else. Wherever they were headed.

He tried not to think about his newfound responsibility of keeping Earth’s memory alive.

“So…what are you guys actually called anyway? Are those your real names? And what the fuck is that stupid symbol they keep flashing everywhere supposed to be?”

“You _do_ have an awful lot to find out.” Gregory smiled again at him. “But maybe you should get some rest first.”

“Rest?” Christophe let out a bark of laughter. “I’m on a spaceship, I’m _in_ space, and I’m talking to an actual alien being. How can I get any rest?”

“You’ll tire yourself out soon. Remember when you tried to stay up for the Olympics ceremony last year?”

“To be fair, I hadn’t had any sleep.”

“Exactly. And how much have you slept in the past, mm, three days?”

Christophe paused before letting out a defeated sigh. “Fine. You win this round, bitch.” Still, he found himself quirking a tiny smile.

He may be out in space with little to no clue as to where he was going, but Gregory was here by his side.

Whatever came next, that fact made the future much easier to stomach.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I published it again and switched some things up (made the words longer and fixed grammatical issues! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
